You stare at me from the other side of the glass.
I want to turn my head away, but even the slightest motion could shatter me, so I do nothing. I sit still instead, my hands gripped so tightly around the steering wheel that my knuckles are white.
The rain splashes against my face through the open side window. The fury of the storm combined with the growl of the jeep engine almost drowns out the drumming in my ears. Almost. I stare at you for those few seconds, watching your life stain the rainwater around your face red.
You still have that dirty little smile on your lips. I hate that smile, but you know that. You only smile like that because it ruins me.
My jaw clenches and I kick open my door, stumbling out into the downpour to assure the job is done. The storm howls out here like a banshee in heat, and the rain feels like buckshot against my skin. I should have dressed better, but something about the idea of ending it in the clothes you picked out strikes me as poetic justice.
Do I look nice now? I dressed down just for you: the black thong you like, and the bra that matches; the old denims you ripped the first time we played together, and the white pullover I walked home in once you got bored of me. I look like a train-wrecked whore, but you always liked me best at my worst.
I hope you like that whore as much as you said you did. I wanted her to be in the driver seat when I sent your body through Hell and further like this.
Bowing my head against the storm, I give the hood of the jeep—and your body upon it—a wide berth as I circle around to the rear hatch. The old can of gas you gave me on the night we met is still in there. I wanted it to be my parting gift, a dirty cumshot in the face of our relationship, but something about the poetry of the whole scenario pisses me off.
If the tow truck had found me before you did, you would still be alive right now. I would be some other woman, but our positions would surely be reversed, yours and mine: I would be the body and you the handler instead.
You always got to be the handler. I want you handled for a change.
As I pull the can out from behind the back seat, I notice how clean it looks against the inside of my jeep. The red steel container is immaculate, not a speck on it despite all the dust and dried mud littering the area where it sat.
I curse your name aloud and slam the hatch cover down so hard it shakes the whole jeep. I stalk back to the front where your body still decorates the hood and uncap the can. The strong smell of gasoline washes over me until my senses dull a bit and my emotions regain a shred of equilibrium.
Then I lift the can up and start.
The storm rages around me as I work. The downpour splashes as much rain on you as I do gas, trying to compete with me for who can drench you most thoroughly. I have a moment of morbid pleasure in noticing your blood vying for a place in the competition, though the red stain is nowhere near big enough to win.
If it were only blood I wanted, I would have taken my switchblade to that pretty-boy face of yours instead of a two-ton vehicle. I want to send you off with a bang, just like how you wanted to send me—just like how you intended to tonight had I not gotten to you first.
But my bang will not come from a gun. I will give you something greater—something straight out of the hell you always compared me to. I let you die in the rain, and that was my biggest fuck up; it was the one thing you always loved me comparing you to.
I will not make that mistake again.
Throwing the emptied can to the ground, I reach into my pocket and take out my lighter. The hard part is flicking it while my hand is so shaky. My fingers are trembling, and I want so badly for them to stop that when I do get a flame going and burn myself, the pain is a relief.
The rain numbs my hands, but pain gives them the fire of reflex. I wish I had the same fire, but I lost that the first night we spent together. The little masochist in me loves to drown in your touch now.
I hate myself for that. I wish I still had the same backbone I did when I met you, but it disappeared somewhere in the face of your charm that night.
I remember how fast my hand went to my switchblade when you pulled up behind me. You could have been some sick psychopath, some murderer or serial rapist—maybe a combination of all three. In retrospect, my caution was warranted, but at the time you were all gentleman.
Was I all right? Was that my jeep a couple miles back? Did I want a ride to the nearest gas station?
You sold yourself to me all charm and chivalry, a horrible combination for a damsel in distress. I threatened to restructure your face with my switchblade if you so much as laid a hand on me, so you laid a can of gas at my feet instead.
I still hate you for that. I discovered later, after you had driven away, the words written on the side: 'Return to Sender,' followed by your name and address.
Request granted. Go laugh in Hell.
The flame finally steadies. The lighter is what shakes, courtesy of my grip and the goddamned adrenaline in my blood. I have a second of rational thought to pull your body off the jeep hood before I do this. You beat me to the idea.
I feel your weight slam into me and we both tumble to the ground. My head hits something hard—the road—and all my senses go numb. The paralysis lasts only a few seconds, but you only need that: you have us flipped over, my stomach to the road and your stomach to my back, before I can move.
I thrash in your grip. I hate your touch. You know that and grip me tighter, spitting in the face of my defiance.
I want you dead. I thrash so furiously that my vision spins—or your hand on my throat just cuts off that much air. You still overpower me. You always overpower me. I can feel your ribs against my back, jostling with my struggles, jabbing into my skin.
I got you that good, did I? I want to hurt you more, but you outpace me: you grab my arm and wrench it so far up my back that it almost dislocates my shoulder. I snarl and swear in every language I know.
You just laugh and pull my head back by my hair. I hate the way it chokes me. I hate the way it lets you kiss me. But my hatred has never done anything than excite you; it was and is your greatest pleasure, and even now you waste your last moments earning it.
I feel your grip tighten and brace myself. You slam my head down onto the road so hard I see stars—red ones. I realize afterward what those stars really are, but my mouth and nose are so full of the blood it barely matters.
Once I really wreck you, I want you to tell me how good I look as your dying breath. You always said you liked me better covered in blood—well, I like it, too. I want to see your preference stand when the color I painted myself in is yours.
I throw my elbow back into your chest, intent on breaking whatever the grill of my jeep missed. You scream. It should be music to my ears, but you deny me even that; your screaming is the sound of a wild beast breaking its last tethers of humanity, and I know those teeth and claws are coming for me.
I go for my switchblade to kill that beast in its cradle, but you know me too well. The wrestling match that follows ends up with me somehow on my back and you straddling my hips instead.
That switchblade does make an entrance, though—just at my throat instead of yours.
I glare up at you, daring to breathe only enough to keep from passing out. You have the blade pressed so goddamned close to my neck it could take my pulse. I have the lighter pressed up against your throat, too; the cap is off and my thumb is on the igniter, waiting.
But neither of us move.
Our little wrestling match doused me in as much gasoline as you. The instant I flick the lighter, you die—and I burn with you. The switchblade gives you time to get away—if you can run fast enough.
Can you do it? Your ribs look pretty bad; I can even see a few of them. I think you wasted what precious strength you had left on tackling me. I might not survive your little love slash to my neck, but I will light you up like a fucking Christmas tree before I go.
Bastard. You should have stayed dead. You only took a last stand to piss me off.
I spit at your face. I doubt you even feel it through the rain, but the sentiment is there. The switchblade gets a little friendlier with my jugular, and it exhilarates me. I can see your chest in better relief now, and the gun holstered beneath your arm catches my eye.
I know you wanted to kill me with that. Too bad I got to you first, fucker.
I see your eyes flash with reflection of the lightning. Until tonight, the only blood I ever saw on you was mine. Now your blood streams down your face in the rainwater you so love comparing yourself to, and the effect inspires me to kiss you.
I do—but with my fist, not my mouth.
You can outmaneuver me in your prime, but I move faster than you now. The blood loss and the abuse from my jeep overwhelm you, and now you can add a broken jaw to that roster. Granted, I broke a few knuckles doing it, but the pain is nothing to me.
After your training, all pain is nothing. Too bad you wasted all that training on your victims and spared none for yourself, because you have no capacity for pain. You never had to suffer it, but I can change that.
I can teach you, teacher. I can teach you how you taught me.
I kick your body off mine. You complain—loudly—but the sound is snarled and sounds too much like my name for me to care. I can feel horrible warmth on the side of my neck, and it stings. I smother it with my hand before it sends me to Hell ahead of you.
My thumb fumbles on the lighter. I trip over my feet staggering to you. I can see you fumbling for the gun as I flick the lighter once, twice, even three times during my stumble. The spark never catches. The rain is too strong, and every hopeful ignition is drowned.
I hate the rain, and I hate you.
The way you watch me for that second as I approach is indescribable: you are charisma given teeth and claws, a force that rips me apart and leaves me in a mangled wreck with just that glance. I am nothing against your magnetism even now, and it infuriates me.
Heat flashes through my eyes. I want to blame it on the rain, but I know you know better than that. You wanted me here tonight to see me cry before you shot me.
Well, take a look, you sick fuck: I want this to be the last sight you ever see.
As if reading my mind, I see you finally figure out how your hands work and grab the gun. I smash the rest of your face before you can pull the trigger. Your head snaps back from the force of my kick, and your body hits the road in a splash of rainwater and blood.
I hate you and want you to know it, and I think you do. That look in your eye sparks a rush of warmth through my insides that has everything to do with nothing good.
I reach down and grab your throat. The rain and blood make your skin too slick to really get a grip, so I have to dig my fingers in. The force wrecks your trachea, and you try to scream – and I say try because I choke your mouth with mine before you do.
The warmth at the side of my neck burns worse than fire now, and I know why: you scratched me too fucking deep when I punched you. I keep your tongue strangled with mine, and I bite down when you try to jerk away. You get no release this time – not by your choice, anyway.
I thrust the lighter up beneath our chins.
The hatred that flashes through your eyes almost falters me. Almost. Then you remind me how much I need this by a second scratch, this one straight through my left breast—and I mean through it, right into the heart. My thumb seizes in my shock, and the motion flicks the lighter.
The spark finally ignites in our kiss.
I have no idea what death by a bullet feels like, but I know it has nothing on this. The fire sears hotter than any hell, and you scream under its burn. I want to scream, too, but the blood from our kiss chokes me instead.
You go for the gun. I know you want to end it fast, go out with some shred of dignity. I grab the gun and shove the barrel to my bleeding breast, refusing you. If you pull that trigger, you kill me on my terms. You, on the other hand, will die by mine.
My defiance infuriates you. The fire overwhelms us both, but you fight till the last breath. I take six bullets to the heart before you stop. The rain hisses against your charred skin as you slump against me, and I catch you without thinking.
You still feel cold, despite the inferno between our bodies. The storm roars around us, but the inferno roars to life between us and takes you first. I sit there a little longer—probably only seconds, but in the agony it feels like more—before the fire takes me, too.
I can smell the gas burning in that last moment. I take it with me to see you again on the other side.